Shadow

"Shadow is the oldest of the powers. Formed from the blood of the very First Victim, it is the taint of sin that soaked a universe of light. Its stain forever reminds us of that original vile deed. Shadow's essence is pain and terror, but it also feels the urge to break free and to endure. Those bound to Shadow are ready to suffer endless pain and give their lives to achieve their ends. They live between death and life, bearing risk to gain power."

-The Elemental Powers

Shadow is one of the four playable Elements in BattleForge. It is represented with the color purple and all Shadow cards have a purple border.

Shadow is typically characterized by the element of risk versus reward that many of its cards possess. Almost all Special Abilities require a sacrifice of some sort, but the rewards for those sacrifices potentially make these cards very powerful. The prevailing thought of the player community is that so many Shadow cards need Upgrades to be effective that Shadow is not well-suited for new players. Making effective use of the cards' abilities does require strategic thinking and understanding of the game's mechanics. This seems a more likely explanation for why many players avoid Shadow. It is certainly the faction chosen by players who like to think outside the box.

The two-orb, common-rarity card, Stone of Torment, is a great example of a powerful card with self-inflicting damage. Though it's important to keep one's own creatures out of allied towers' damage auras, auras from multiple towers stack. Thus, a common tactic is to build confounding arrays of these, where all enemies within will quickly crumble.

Shadow creatures are typically short-lived, though often cheap to play. Another factor for consideration is that many cards make use of corpses in interesting ways, so killing off your own units isn't necessarily a bad thing. Corpses can be converted into offense, as with the Shadow Insect, Harvester, and Corpse Explosion spell. It can also be used to sustain a creature, as with Ripper and makes Overlord extremely hard to kill.

A common trait among Shadow's creatures is the ability to give themselves a temporary combat boost. Of course, there is a cost. In some cases, like Darkelf Assassins, the unit may be temporarily paralyzed after the boost expires. In other cases, the penalty is heavier, as with Nightcrawler and Forsaken. These creatures sacrifice their lives in exchange for their temporary enhancements, expiring after their boon runs its course. Of course, the dead creatures send their power costs back to the Void Power pool, so learning how to manage void power and card recast timers is important for players who wish to master Shadow.

Furthermore, some creatures are downright self-destructive; the Ashbone Pyro lives for combat where it can offset its bleeding life with its lifestealing ability, without which it bleeds to death. Or Shadow Phoenix whose only attack is to launch itself into a kamikaze death, with the cunning twist of a chance to rise again and do it all over again.

Shadow also possesses the ability to expand its armies beyond that of the limit 120 unit limit, albeit only for a short duration. With the Harvester collecting the dead along the way for summoning Skeleton Warriors, or Undead Army, or Cultist Master and Infect whereby defeated enemies arise anew as servants to the Shadow player.